Hong Kong raids paper, arrests owner
HONG KONG -- Hong Kong authorities arrested media tycoon Jimmy Lai on Monday, broadening their enforcement of a new national security law and stoking fears of a crackdown on the semi-autonomous region's free press. Police were seen carting away boxes of what they said was evidence at Lai's pro-democracy Next Digital headquarters.
In the evening, police arrested pro-democracy activist Agnes Chow Ting on charges of inciting secession under the same law, according to tweets by fellow activist Nathan Law, who left Hong Kong for Britain soon after the law took effect. An earlier post on Chow's official Facebook page said police had arrived at her home and her lawyers were rushing to the scene, and a separate post later confirmed that she had been taken away by police.
Two days after Chinese and Hong Kong officials shrugged off sanctions imposed on them by the U.S., the moves showed China's determination to enforce the new law and curb dissent in the city after months of pro-democracy demonstrations last year.
The arrest of Lai, two of his sons and several company officers and the search of Next Digital marked the first time the law was used against news media. Next Digital operates Apple Daily, a pro-democracy tabloid that often condemns China's Communist Party-led government.
"Raiding a news institution is a severe attack on press freedom and should not be tolerated in a civilized society," Next Digital said in a statement. "Hong Kong's press freedom is now hanging by a thread, but our staff will remain fully committed to our duty to defend the freedom of the press."
Mexico City bars can open as eateries
MEXICO CITY -- The government of Mexico City allowed bars to operate as restaurants starting Monday in order to reopen as part of an easing of the coronavirus lockdown.
While bars and nightclubs have been closed for four months, the city is now offering automatic approval if bar owners fill out an online application and agree to offer food and enforce sanitary and social distancing measures. In exchange, they can open at 30% capacity until 10 p.m.
Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said that was to avoid more job losses among bar employees.
Similar measures elsewhere have given rise to symbolic food orders -- a handful of chips -- for customers who really just want a beer or wine. But Sheinbaum was emphatic, saying: "I repeat, the bars are not opening."
New guidelines that took effect Monday also allow movie theaters, swimming pools and museums in Mexico City to open at 30% capacity.
Mauritius struggles to contain oil spill
JOHANNESBURG -- Urgent efforts increased in Mauritius on Monday to empty a stranded Japanese ship of an estimated 2,500 tons of oil before the vessel breaks up and increases the contamination of the island's once-pristine Indian Ocean coastline.
Already more than 1,000 tons of fuel has washed up on the eastern coast of Mauritius, polluting its coral reefs, protected lagoons and shoreline.
High winds and waves are pounding the MV Wakashio, which was showing signs of splitting apart and dumping its remaining cargo oil into the waters surrounding Mauritius. The bulk carrier ran aground on a coral reef two weeks ago.
"We are expecting the worst," Mauritian Wildlife Foundation manager Jean Hugues Gardenne said.
"The ship is showing really big, big cracks. We believe it will break into two at any time, at the maximum within two days," Gardenne said. "So much oil remains in the ship, so the disaster could become much worse. It's important to remove as much oil as possible. Helicopters are taking out the fuel little by little, ton by ton."
French experts arrived from the nearby island of Reunion and were deploying booms to try to contain any new oil spill, Gardenne said.
Amid the rough seas, efforts were also underway to get other ships close enough to pump large amounts of oil out of the vessel.
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U.K. plane patrols Channel for migrants
LONDON -- A Royal Air Force surveillance plane flew over the English Channel on Monday as the British government sought to stop a growing number of people making the hazardous crossing from France in small boats.
Britain's Conservative government has talked tough amid a surge in the number of migrants crossing the Channel during recent warm summer weather. More than 650 people have arrived so far in August -- including 235 in a single day last week -- with pregnant women, babies and unaccompanied children among them.
An inflatable dinghy carrying about 20 people was met by a U.K. Border Force boat Monday and escorted to the port of Dover.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said trying to make the voyage was "a very bad and stupid and dangerous and criminal thing to do."
"Be in no doubt what's going on is the activity of cruel and criminal gangs who are risking the lives of these people taking them across the Channel, a pretty dangerous stretch of water in potentially unseaworthy vessels," Johnson said during a visit to a school near London.
-- Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports